Nakamura, Tom (3/16/2021)

Emma Saito Lincoln (EL): So today is March 16th, 2021, and this oral history interview is being recorded remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviewer is Emma Saito Lincoln of the JASC Legacy Center, and the interviewee is Tom Kazumi Nakamura. Also participating in the interview is Tom's granddaughter, Cori Lin. This interview is being recorded by the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center in order to document the experiences of Japanese Americans in the Chicago area. Shall we begin?

Tom Kazumi Nakamura (TN): Let's begin.

EL: So Tom we're going to start with some basic biographical details just for context, okay? 

TN: Alright.

EL: And if you wouldn't mind stating your full name please, that's a good place to start.

TN: My name is Tom Kazumi Nakamura, I was born on August 25th, 1928, makes me 00:01:00about 92 years old and climbing. And I was born in a hospital in Marysville, California and because that was in the, in the 20s, that was at end of the depression, and they only had one major hospital. But the rest of my life, I was born--raised in the next town called Yuba City, California which was a farming community, mostly fruits and a few truck farming, but mostly fruit farming. Peaches, prunes, pears, apples, and etcetera. And I was raised on a peach farm, and this goes back to a town near Yuba City called Tudor, California. A little 00:02:00town with a, maybe a mercantile store, and a barber shop, and a few others. I remember a shoe, shoe repair shop but it was one of those stops as you go along Hwy 20 going towards Sacramento. And well I--I can't remember, probably from about 6, 7 years old I was mainly speaking Japanese, I didn't know too much English except for speaking to my brothers and sisters, they spoke English, but I spoke mainly to my mother and my father. So I was speaking, I was raised speaking Japanese. And then when I went to elementary school, then of course I was kind of forced to speak English so, so English became my primary language, 00:03:00but I still, when I speak to my parents or their friends I still spoke Japanese. And I went to a school called Wilson Elementary School. It was a little country, country school. They had two big rooms, one room contained kindergarten to 4th grade and then the other one from 5th grade to 8th grade. So, so I don't know how they did it but we had one teacher in one one class and another teacher in another class and they, they taught four grades each. And this, this is a kind of a country school, so I can't remember whether we were, while the other classes were being taught, I don't know what we did, maybe we threw paper clips or rubber bands at each other but I can't remember. [laughs] But it was a little 00:04:00small country school, and each class had maybe about 10 or 12 students. And after Wilson Elementary School, well I was in the 7th grade and, and that year there was a, a great flood. Well we lived along what they call the Feather River which came down from the Sierra Nevadas. And each year, in the old days, they had these Chinese laborers build up these levees on both side of the river so it won't flood. And each year this, when the spring, in the spring, when the, the snow started melting in the Sierra Nevadas, this huge amount of water would come 00:05:00down the Feather River and the, and this one particular year I think it was 1940--thir--1938, 39, or 40 I can't remember but the levee started to to overflow. So they called every able-bodied person to come and try to fight the, the river, levee, for the river from overflowing. And then my, my older brother, my father, my older brother Jimmy, and my older brother Joe they, they all got into a truck with a shovel and they started going up to the levee, fill it up with, filling the levee with sandbags and they're, they're, I can't remember how many people went there, but after awhile they came back and says "We can't hold the levee back the water is overflowing". So we all got onto this truck, and we 00:06:00move--moved to near Yuba City. We had a friend in Yuba City and we had all moved to their place, and after the floods we went back there, and we went to see the levee, and the levee was, I would say maybe about four footbi-football field wide and it just flooded the, the whole area there. Fortunately, because a lot of time they do it intentionally because if the country wasn't flooded that city of Yuba City and Marysville will be flooded so a lot of times they intentionally cut the levee to flood the, the orchards. So, but this one here I don't think it was done intentionally but, but uh, the, the floods just, after the flood receded, we got back on the truck and we took a tour about, around the area 00:07:00where we lived. And I remember, the first thing I remember was, somebody's outdoor toilet was in our yard. [laughs] It just, the-the flood just brought the toilet into our yard. I don't know what happened to our-our toilet because you know everybody had outdoor toilets. And the thing I remember when we were driving along, and we saw this railroad. The flood just twisted the railroads, we were looking down the, the railroad line, it's just like a curve. And along the railroad track there were cows, and they were just bloated up, I just remember that because I was still about 12, 13 years old at that time. So after, after the flood, my brother found another place near Tudor, and we started going to another school called Central Gaither Elementary School and, and we were 00:08:00attending, I was in 8th grade at that time. And we were in this, it was Sunday, December 7th, we were in this Japanese school because my parents wanted us to learn Japanese, so they had this little country Japanese school, and we were attending the Japanese school, and our teacher's name was Mr. Gouda. And he was a Japanese teacher also in the town of Marysville, but every Sunday he would, he would go out to the country, and teach some of the country people Japanese. So, I remember I was in the third grade, I was just learning some kanji, and I was learning this fude, how to write Japanese words with this Japanese brush. And it 00:09:00was in the eighth grade, we were just studying the constitution, in order to graduate 8th grade we had to memorize the constitution of the United States. And this is the irony of it, when we were studying the constitution we were looking out this classroom window, and we see this military people with Jeeps. And they got out and they're on the telephone pole outside they're tacking this thing on the telephone pole and we were just wondered why they were doing that. So at recess time we all ran outside and we were looking at this sign that says uh it was Executive Order 66, 90 I think it was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt. And it says, "All people of Japanese and Japanese descent we have to evacuate this area". So, so when the principle read this notice, they ran out 00:10:00too, and says, "Okay all of you, pe--Japanese peo--children go home. You know, so after they posted that, we left school, we went home and by that time my brother--my brothers and my sister they read the sign and they says, "Well we have to get ready to evacuate" because they only give us, abou--I think it was about 10 days or so. And they says, "Just bring anything that you can carry'', and here I was looking around, I says, "Anything I can carry". I had a lot of toys and things like that, I didn't know which one to bring. And uh, and my father says, "Well don't worry it's not gonna last too long, so we'll be back". So I says, "Oh, okay". So I went under the--this house that we were renting, and I hid all of my toys underneath the, the house. And thinking that we will go 00:11:00back, the-the most precious thing that I got was a microscope. It was one of those toy microscopes, it was about 3X magnification, and that was one of the precious things that I had, these little box games that I hid under the crawl space there, thinking that we'll be back, but I don't know what ever happened to it. But, but it was one of those things that we had to, we had to decide what to carry, so everybody was busy. And my brothers were busy trying to get rid of the refrigerator and the household things. And people would-would come around and saying, "I'll give you 50 cents for that, I'll give you a dollar for that." And 00:12:00the refrigerator, somebody says, "I'll give you 50 cents", and somebody else says, "I'll give you a dollar" so my brother says, "Take it." So the refrigerator sold for a dollar. And one thing I remember was our car. We saved up, I don't know how many years, we saved up to buy a car. So finally it was a 19, 1938 Ford and we paid $785. I remember that we had all this cash accumulated we didn't--at that time my father didn't believe in banks, so we just had it hidden away. So he gave it to my brother and my brother went to Yuba Cit--to Marysville to this car dealer and bought this car. And we were all so proud of it, and it was, it was color was black and that's what Henry Ford says you could 00:13:00order any color, but you're gonna get a black car. So all the Ford cars in those days were black. So when-when my brother brought that thing back, he was the only one that had a driver's license. But we all got into the car, we was just driving around the country and I says, I still remember I says, "Oh, no more walking, no more bicycling" you know? We could ride in this car, because we always have to get a ride to go into town. And some people would say "I'm going to town, do you want to go?" So said "Okay" so they would come and pick us up and bring us to town but now with our own car we was just going to town whenever we wanted to. So it was, it was something that we were so proud of because everybody was chipping in into the family fund to buy this car. Well by the time evacuation come this car was only about 2 years old. And this, one guy came and 00:14:00says, "I'll g--" we-we never got any offers on the car everything else everybody was picking up we just giving things away actually towards the end. And this one guy came and says, "Hey I hear y-you have a car that you want to sell." We says, "Yeah we paid 700-something a couple of years ago". He says, "Well I'll give you $100." So he had $100 cash, so my brother says "Well we can't help it." You know, my-we w-the Japanese we would use the word shikata ga nai I, I don't know if you under-you know what that is. But this is, this is the attitude that we had, we, you know had no other choice shikata ga nai. So I remember my mother telling me this story about the willow tree, it's a Japanese story it says "You 00:15:00have to be a willow tree, if you, if you be a willow tree, the wind comes and blows but the willow just gives way to the, to the wind, and it won't break. If you try to be a strong, stout tree the wind's gonna come and break your branches." So, so that story and the shikata ga nai that's, that's what we felt from the time that this evacuation started. And something that we couldn't do anything about it's something that they posted up, we didn't know anything about. But, well that time we were studying the constitution but, but all that just went out the window, it didn't mean that much. Because you know later on I find out that every American citizen is, is entitled to a fair trial. And of course we didn't know anything about that, the constitution. You know when 00:16:00you're about 13 years old it doesn't mean too much. But of course there are, a lot of the older niseis that understood this, so there was a guy named Fred Korematsu, you've probably heard of him, and there's some other guys that, well, understood what the constitution of the United States was. So of course they, they fought for all of the Japanese Americans but after that we were, after we got through the-they came by. I think it was a Greyhound bus or some kind of a bus, that we all got on to. We just carried one suitcase, my, my dad was carrying two suitcases, my, my brothers were-were all carrying whatever they could hand-handle and they were throwing it on top of the bus. And it took us to this Marysville train station, and this Marysville train station, oh we a--we 00:17:00all got together we saw a lot of our friends all together. So we weren't aware of what's happening, but we just greeted each other and says "Well I don't know where this train is going to go" and nobody knew where it was going to go. And my brothers were helping with the other people loading all of their luggage, well they had to put ID's on their bags, and they had these little cardboard tags that's, with a string around it. You write your name on there, and then you just put it on the tag, they would just throw the whole thing into the train. And once the train was loaded down they, they said "Everybody to, get into the train." So we all got into the train. I still remember the train had these chairs that flip-flop, if the train is going one way you'd flop the ch-chair and 00:18:00you'd be heading the same way with the train. And to my brother and I it was kind of a thrilling experience because this was our first train ride, you know, we never rode a train before. So it was kind of exciting. And as soon as we started moving, the soldiers I didn't know they're military or police, all I knew were that there were soldiers. They came through the train and told us, "Pull the blinds down." So we all pulled the blinds down. So after that we didn't know where we were going we were-we couldn't look out the window but-[coughs] Excuse me. Several hours later, they told us to open the blinds because the train stopped, and we looked out the window and they had these military convoy trucks and some buses. And we were all told to get out and get onto the trus-truck or the bus, so we got onto the, the, you know older people, 00:19:00they got on to the bus because they couldn't get on to the top, top of the truck. So, but my brothers and I, we jumped on to the back of the truck and then we were taken to this Merced assembly center. We didn't know where we were because when we opened up the shade we saw a lot of people out there and we didn't know what was going on and we didn't even know we were going to this camp because nobody, nobody knew about this assembly center. And I don't know how they built assembly centers so fast because from December 7th you know, must have took 'em a couple of months and they had all this built up already. And also, not, this is what they called the Merced assembly center, and of course, after they assembled everybody, give 'em, gave 'em time to build these 00:20:00relocation centers in the different states, you know? You know, Tule Lake and Idaho, Arizona, Poston, and all those areas. But when we went to the Merced assembly center, the families just got together, and we had all of our nimotsu or baggage together, and then they would, they would come along and says, okay, they would give us a--this uh, I forgot what it was but it was like a sheet of paper. And this says okay, this is, this is your home so you--this is your apartment. And I just remember on the paper had D-311 so, so later on we all--my brother's holding onto the paper, and they--and then--he's--they're giving us a description of what the assem--relocation center was like. Says, each one of 00:21:00these, the D represents a block and 3 represents the barrack, and the 11 represents the apartment, or the apartment that you're going to be in, in that barracks. So we all started looking for their, our blocks. And fortunately, ours was one of the first blocks, it was D block. So we were out there, and my brother and I we were going up and down the block, looking for barrack three. And uh, finally found it, and my brothers were waving to--my brother says, "Over here, over here!" So they co--so they says "Come back and get th--the baggage!" So we, Larry and I ran back and got the baggage and we went into this room, I guess it was uh, about a little smaller than our living room which is about 00:22:0025x25. And they had these Army cots, you know the kind that you fold with the canvas top. And then they had these mattresses that you put on top, and they had this GI blanket. So, so we mo--brought all of our baggage in there, and uh, we made an arrangement, of how we should have the cots, and we lined up all the cots on one side--

Cori Lin (CL): Grandpa.

TN: Yes.

CL: How old are all your siblings at this point? 

TN: Well, I was 13 years old.

CL: How old were your--what are the names of your siblings and then how old are they?

TN: Well, okay, Jimmy my oldest, he was born in 1922, so I don't know how he was, but my, my sister was the oldest she was born in 1920 so my sister Mary and 00:23:00then comes my brother--

CL: What are their Japanese names too?

TN: Oh, Mary Kimie, Kimie, and Jimmy, James Misao and my brother Joe, he didn't have a Japanese name, everybody call him Jyo, Jyo in Japanese. [laughs] And then I came, the third son, and then my youngest was Larry Lawrence Tomomi Nakamura. So there were four of us, plus my sister, my mother and father. So we moved into this little apartment and we tried to settle in as much as we can. My mother, fortunately she brought some sheets, there was a whole bag, you know she just wrapped a whole blanket o' bags in the sheet and tied it like uh, you know, the 00:24:00Japanese do, and then you know, was carrying it over shoulder like that but um--

EL: Do you remember what the families did who didn't bring their own sheets?

TN: I do not know, but I think what they did was they just slept on the mattress and put the blanket over them. And uh--

EL: And you mentioned feeling a little bit excited, about riding on the train for the first time?

TN: Oh, yes that was, well you know when you're 13 years old and you never, never rode on a train before-- [smiles]

EL: Right--

TN: It was, it was real exciting. So--

EL: Do you remember some of the other feelings that were running through you at that time, or maybe the expressions on your parents' faces?

TN: Well they--they were concerned, especially my mother my, my father, he 00:25:00depended upon my mother a lot because he didn't know how to read or write Japanese or English so he depended upon her a lot. And my mother, I have to give her a lot of credit, she was very intuitive and she had a lot of foresight so, and she was kind of a realistic person so she was really concerned for us. And of course my sister Mary, she was and she graduated high sc--I think in 1942. I think she graduated high school at that time, yeah. So she was, she was doing a lot of things taking care of the family, and my brother Jimmy too he was two years younger than my sister. And my brother Joe he was in high school at that 00:26:00time, and he was a very athletic person. And everybody knew him in camp because he was such a good baseball player, and they call 'em Lefty Yuba Joe, 'cause he was from Yuba City. [laughs] But uh, he and my, my sister my two brothers and my sister they took--took care of mostly everything, so my brother Larry and I we were, we were pretty, felt pretty comfortable, felt pretty safe.

EL: Mhmm.

TN: You know, when you have all those other older people taking care of you, you feel a little comfortable and we kinda enjoyed ourselves. But, I'd like to take 00:27:00a few minute break. 

EL: Of course.

TN: And I'll be right back. 

--

EL: Okay, we are recording again.

CL: Mhmm.

EL: So Tom, I think being mi--

CL: Oh, Emma you just mu--

EL: Yeah, being mindful of the time that's available to us, I think if we can move quickly through some of the, the facts of where your family was during the war. It's my understanding that you have given your family the great gift of , of writing down a lot of these details. So if we can shift a little bit through the war and use most of our time today to talk about after the war and especially your time in Chicago, I think that's where we'll head. So we--we were in Merced, so-called assembly center and then from there your family moved on to 00:28:00which camp?

TN: Okay I'll--I was thinking the same thing because all of these camp lifes are so recorded that practically everybody, you know, wanted to know they could just go back to a, a history book to understand that. So, what I'd like to do is after Merced assembly center we were, we were transferred to Amache relocation camp. It was called Granada, Colorado in Granada, Colorado. And of course the, the camp was named after a, Indian Princess I think Amache. And we, we spent my high school, high school days there. And after the camp closed, we moved to Denver, Colorado. And we stayed in, in Denver, Colorado for a few years, and uh--

EL: When you, when you left camp to go to Colorado, did you already know somebody who was there? Did you have a place to go to?

TN: Yes, fortunately my brother, Jim, left camp early and he got a job in Denver as a chef in a restaurant. And he saved enough money to put a down payment on the house for us. So by the time we left camp we had a house in Denver where my mother and my father and the rest of us was able to move to, a place to move to. So we were fortunate in that, and of course my father had a stroke in camp so when the camp closed, the Army furnished an ambulance, and they asked me to stay with my father in the ambulance. So from Amache we drove all the way up to 00:30:00Denver in this Army ambulance, and we established a life there in Denver for a few years. [coughs] Excuse me. 

EL: And then after those few years in Denver, what came next?

TN: Well after a few years, well I st--I only stayed there for about year and a half and I got a V-mail from my brother, and he says "Tom, you know you're 17 years old 17 and a half, you're going to be drafted pretty soon, so says I think the services will accept Japanese Americans now so why don't you try to volunteer to any of the services except the Army." He says, "Army is--", I--I don't want to use the word but there's a description [laughs] of, of what the Army was.

EL: And his opinion was based on?

TN: Well he was in the 442nd and, you know, he, he fought from, well he started in North Africa through a--through Italy, and Germany so he went through a lot of bad things. So, yeah, so he says "Just try to avoid the Army." So I went to the Navy recruiting people in Denver, and I says, "You know I'm Japanese American, do you take Japanese American in the Navy?" This guy looks at me, he says "Sure", so I says, "Okay, I'm gonna volunteer for the Navy." So he signed me up, and before you know it I was on my way to San Diego Naval Training Center, and from there I was transferred to Pensacola to take training as an aviation photographer. So I graduated Pensacola, and then I went--they 00:32:00transferred me to this aircraft carrier, the Franklin D. Roosevelt and I--I tra--I--the--the Roosevelt aircraft carrier was in, in the dry docks, so they transferred me to the Norfolk Naval Air, Air Base and I stayed there until the end of my duty. And then I came back to, to Yuba City, worked around for a while, and then decided to go to this New York Institute of Photography. And so I started getting jobs here and there, just enough money to move to the next town and my next--the first, first town was in Provo, Utah I got a job as a far--as a truck farming, helping a truck farm. So I stayed there for about a 00:33:00month and a half, got enough money to go to Denver, and then I got a job in Denver at a pharmaceutical distribution center called McKesson & Robbins, I don't know if they're still in business. But I saved up enough money to go to Chicago and I figured well I'll get a job in Chicago and continue on to New York. Well it so happened that Chicago is November 2nd, 1948 President Truman was elected president at that time. That's when the Chicago Tribune says "Dewey Elected President!", and then they retracted their right away and says, "Our mistake, Truman!" [laughs] So it was kind of a memorable day that I arrived in Chicago. And I stayed at the YMCA for awhile until my funds ran out, 'cause I 00:34:00was looking for a job, I couldn't find any job at that time. 

EL: Did you know anybody in Chicago?

TN: Well I--I didn't I, I knew, later on, I knew there were quite a few people, but at that time I wasn't intending to stay that long, so I, I didn't look up any friends or anything. So I walked the streets for awhile, and found out that Japantown was on the Near North Side, so from the Loop to Division St. In the meantime, I move all my things from the YMCA, I moved it to this National Trailway bus station. I put all my things in the locker, and that was my, I think my last dime I put in there, and I, I couldn't take it out because I didn't have any money to put, put the things back in. So I was walking the 00:35:00streets, and somebody told me he says "Well why don't you go Clark and Division, that's where lot of the Japanese resettled." So I said, "Well, where's Division Street?" he says "Well you just keep walking north." I just, I was happened to be on Clark Street. And so I kept walking, and I, I remember how cold it was because it was in November it's cold and I just had this reversible coat, what they call the Melton on one side and gabardine on the inside. And that was warm enough for California but not Chicago. I didn't realize how cold Chicago could get in November. So what I did was, I remember there were two newspapers at that time, the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune. Well the Chicago Sun Times 00:36:00was a smaller paper, and it fit under my coat so I stuffed myself with the Chicago Sun Times newspaper about three thickness. And I'll b--be walking along crinkling with the newspaper, [laughs] but it kept me warm. And so I finally reached Division Street and I see a lot of these Japanese stores, and first store I remember was Toguri Mercantile store which is near Clark and Division. And, and on one--one side on the corner was a hotel called Mark Twain, I don't know if it's still there, and then on the, the other corner was a drug store called Dressler Drugs. And, and right by, by Elm Street near Toguri, there was a pool hall called Zipp's pool hall. So they said "Oh, a lot of the niseis on weekend they come and play pool over there." So I went in there, and I was just 00:37:00sitting around watching people play pool, and at that time I was smoking a lot and I didn't have any money for smokes so, so people'd lay their cigarette butts along the, thing and I just pick it up take a puff. [laughs] And then I said to myself, well that's--that word about "Beggars cannot be choosy?" [laughs] But uh, it was, it was a pretty couple of hard weeks because uh--then finally at, this is a Saturday night, I went there to the Zips Pool Hall and I ran into couple of guys I didn't know, but they, they I introduced myself to them and I was telling 'em that, my story. He says, "Oh come on over there, come on, come with us." And I forgot their last name, but, but he had a nickname called 00:38:00Froggy? Froggy and Sarah. And he took me to a restaurant next door, and bought me a big plate of meatball and spaghetti. And that was the first big meal I had, and I just gobbled that down. And I remember says, "Froggy are you going to eat, eat that bread?" He says "No" 'says, so I took that bread from him, I ate his bread and oh, that was such a good meal I, I just remember that. And in the meantime, a few days later, my classmate from camp, his name is George Hikawa, he was at the pool hall and then he, he recognized me and then I told him the story I said you know I don't have a place I just live at the bus terminal. He says "Oh my, my mother runs a boarding house." So he says "Come on over." So I says "You sure it's okay? I don't have any money." He says "Oh it's okay." So I 00:39:00walked all the way down to the bus terminal, down the Loop, and then walk all the way back to their boarding house, which is on, between Goethe and Schiller on LaSalle Street, so 1330 N. LaSalle St was the address. So I brought all my gear and then, then I met the mother and, and the father also. And they says, "Oh, come on down for a meal." So I kinda felt guilty because I didn't have any money, and all the rest of the guys there, there were about 14 guys there, mostly ex-GIs going to school under the GI bill.

CL: Grandpa, were they mostly Japanese?

TN: Mostly Ja--I think they were all Japanese. And a lot of them from Hawaii, from Idaho, from different places, and they were all going to school and living at that boarding house. So, so we made friends and when I first sat down I felt 00:40:00so guilty, but then Mrs. Hikawa she was so nice to me, and she says, and the father too he says, "I understand the situation", he says, "Don't worry about it." So I felt a little better, and then, from then on I started searching for jobs, and this guy says "Hey, you know there's a place called Resettlers" I says "Where?" He says "Right down, you know a couple of blocks on LaSalle St." So I says "Oh okay". Because I'm looking through the Yellow Pages and looking for addresses and you know there are some in the Loop, some way on the northside, and I, I it would take me all day just to go for one interview. So I says, "Oh I'll try Resettlers", so I walked down on Goethe, right on the corner was a 00:41:00Swedish club I remember. And I was, I was thinking all these people with, when they have parties they have all these tuxedos, and the women were wearing gowns going into the Swedish club. I said "Boy, is it nice to be rich?" [laughs] But I kept walking down, and then on the corner of Clark and LaSalle, I mean on Division and LaS--uh Division and LaSalle, there was a White Castle. White Castle hamburger? And then right past White Castle was this little storefront and uh, it says "Chicago Resettlers Committee". So I walked down, I think you go down a step. And there was this man, I forgot what his name was, I was talking to him, I was looking for a job. And then he says "Well these are all the, all the stores or the company that's going to hire Japanese Americans." So he says 00:42:00"You don't have to worry about going different places and trying because these people--" he says, "--mostly I talked to and they're willing to hire Japanese Americans." And w--

EL: When he said, when he said that, did he have a list to show you or--

TN: Yes, he ha--

EL: --specific job descriptions?

TN: Right, well like this, one on the list was Curtiss Candy Company. And I heard of Curtiss Candy Company, I says, "Hey that's Babe Ruth!" You know, so, he says, "Well a lot of, lot of issei women are working there so if you wanna try you can go over there." But then I was looking through the different brochures and things he had on the table, and my eye caught this LaSalle Photo Service. Underneath was a William Yamamoto. And I, I looked there and I says "Do you know this William Yamamoto?" He says, "Yeah he used to run a studio called 'Oriental 00:43:00Studio', but he started a different business now." So I said I don't know if it's the same William Yamamoto that I knew in Amache, but so I said "Well, I'll give it a try." So I walked down LaSalle St, and he was on ten forty--1048 S LaSalle St. So I'm walking down there, across the street was a ca--place called LaSalle Mans--LaSalle Mansion. And, talking to the guy he says "Well there's a lot of people that we knew that lives in the LaSalle Mansion too because a lot of the people from Amache moved into the LaSalle Mansion." So it was right across from the LaSalle Mansion. And so I walk, I turned, and I see this apartment building, and I says "I'm looking for LaSalle Photo Service." And 00:44:00there's no LaSalle Photo Service! So I ring the bell, and then this one Japanese man comes out, and he, I says, "You know I'm looking for LaSalle Photo Service." He says "Oh it's downstairs in the basement." So I introduce myself and I says "You know, I'm looking for a job, I don't know if, if this William Yamamoto was the same Ya--William Yamamoto that I knew in camp." So he says "Oh come on down, I'll show you." So we went down to the basement. It was very dimly lit, and I see two people in the corner there, working. And then the, this, later on I find out his name is Tom Tsubone, he was uh, he owned, he bought the apartment building. And he, he says "Bill, there's somebody here to see you." So soon as Bill looked at me and I looked at him I says, "That's the same Bill that we knew 00:45:00in camp!" [laughs] So we started talking, and he was wondering what happened to me, I said "Well I was in the Navy, and then I just got out, I was going to go under the GI bill." So, so he says well there was this one lady working with him, so he says "Oh I just got married few years ago and this is my wife, Grace." So that's how we got together. And I said, well this was in March, I applied for GI bill to go to this Ray-Vogue School of Photography on, on Michigan Ave in the Loop. So, so this was in, this was May. So I asked Bill I says, "You know I--I've been looking for a job, I go to school in the afternoons, and I'm looking for a job in the morning." So he says, "Perfect." I says, "Can you use a part-timer?" He says "I sure can." So that's, that's how we started in the basement. So I would get up 7:00 o'clock in the morning, go help 00:46:00him, and work, work with him 'till noon, then I would take the subway down to the Loop and go to school. [coughs] Excuse me.

EL: And what kind of a school was it?

TN: It was Ray-Vogue School of Photography and Fashion. It was one of these schools that pop up because of the GI bill. So after the GI bill ran out, that school went outta business. [laughs] But it was something that I wanted to learn because all I knew was military photography, you know? And I wanted to know a little about civilian photography. Well this one here happened to specialize in fashions. But I didn't, I didn't want to go into fashion photography, that was farthest from my mind. But they had the, the commercial division which I was interested in, so I went to the commercial division. And uh that was--I think 00:47:00the school classes lasted only 10 months, so after that I started working with Bill full time. And he's--when, when we started, we st--we started with maybe about two or three stores, drug stores, mainly developing film for the drug stores. And we had, on the way we had this Dressler drug stores on Clark and Division. And so we would stop in and talk to the Japanese stores, little mom and pop stores, and Toguri was a pretty big store. And we would say "Well, if anybody drops off a roll of film for, to develop," says, "we'll put this sign out, saying that you develop films." So that's how we got all of these Japanese 00:48:00stores along Clark St, and then have York, York Foods, Toguri's, there was another mercantile store on the, that was, east side of Clark St, and there several stores north of Clark St, and that's how we started out. And we worked there for--from May 2nd, and the next year we had, we were so busy we had to move to another place, so we, we relocated to Fullerton Avenue. There was a storefront, a typical Chicago storefront, 25-foot frontage with a window, display window with a door in the middle. And that--that's where we moved, and that's how we began our second generation of photo finishing. And a few years later business continued to grow, so Bill bought a lot on the corner of Diversey and Paulina, and we built a photo plant from the ground up over there. And a few 00:49:00years later, our business continued to grow, in the meantime we had, at, on Fullerton Ave, we had a lot of nisei workers, workin' for us part time. And some of them stayed for us for almost 30 years. And when we moved to Diversey, we had about 20, 20 people at, when we were on Fullerton, and then we moved to Diversey and then that grew to about 125 people, so we had to expand again. So we expanded to an area of 3300-square foot of service space. And by that time our employees grew to over 400 employees and we, we were known as people who hire 00:50:00Japanese Americans only. 'Cause although we, we had lot of Caucasian people, lot of them they came to me in my office one day, he says "You know, Tom," says, "I like working here but I know there's a invisible glass ceiling and I'm going to look somewhere else." So when he, when he said that, I said "Oh my gosh!" Says, "You reminded me all the prejudice ag--against the Japanese Americans" and now here the Japanese Americans, unconsciously because, you know we didn't do it intentionally, we just wanted help the niseis out. Because lot of them were looking for jobs, and they knew that they could find a job. I used t--I used to tell my friends I said "If you're a Japanese American, you got a 99% chance of getting a job at LaSalle Photo." [Laughs] But uh, it was a--it was, it was not 00:51:00in a prejudicial way, you know we didn't, we didn't just want Japanese Americans, because eventually we hired a lot of different other races. They're uh, although I do admit a lot of them are Asian, because we had lot from Korea, lot of Filipino people, lot of, lot from Thailand, and we had blacks, whites, well we, we had quite a mixture of them. And a lot of Spanish, so it was a, kind of a potpourri of, of Chicago. And I can't, I can't say too much maybe I, maybe I'd like to emphasize how much Bill helped the Japanese American community. He 00:52:00not only helped the Resettlers, but when they changed to the JASC, he helped them a lot too. I remember one year he bought a van, and he had it, he had it made so that it would take care of the handicapped people. And at that time you know cars were 18,000, 20,000, but this van, I told Bill I said "Boy, how much did this set you back?" He says "Oh in the 50s." I said "Whoa my gosh!" [laughs] So the people from JASC came to our plant to pick up the van, and it had one of these things where you could get the wheelchair, and get on with the wheelchair. And we, we took pictures in the back of our plant, and they were appreciative. And he wouldn't say but I know monetarily he helped the JASC a lot, and his wife 00:53:00Grace helped a lot, and then his daughter, Nancy, she helped a lot. When she was, after she retired I think she was working almost full time there for a while and also as uh, an advisor. I don't know if you know, knew a Nancy Yoshida?

 EL: I don't, I'm actually fairly new--

TN: Oh, okay.

El: --to the JASC, and new to Chicago, so I don't have that network of connections.

TN: Oh okay, but anyway she was, she was one of those that really helped out a lot, a lot to people, because of her mother and father doing this. So--

CL: Grandpa, I have a quick question. Um, did--or actually, Emma, do you have a question first? Um, what--did you feel like people were supportive of LaSalle Photo expanding, either like, through the city process or like the neighborhoods 00:54:00that you were expanding in, like how did non-Japanese people react to you becoming so successful?

TN: Well, I don't, I don't think they had any animosity towards us. Yeah, matter of fact lot of the, you know homes that we needed the land. So what Bill did was he offered them a offer you know like uh, The Godfather says "I'm gonna offer you an offer you can't refuse." [laughs] So, so they were, he built, he, he bought out three buildings next door, and he paid top real estate price, plus the move-in to the new place. So, so once, once they moved out then we tore everything down and we expanded our building out there. And, and we needed 00:55:00parking for our employees so there was couple of more buildings that we bought out and tore it down, and made it into employee parking lot. So I guess--

CL: What about this, the city, like when you were getting permits and stuff?

TN: [Laughs] Oh, well I, I don't know if I should tell about the city of Chicago. [Laughs] But this--[Laughs] Shall I do that Cori? 

CL: I think it would be fine, 'cause it's, it's all old news. 

TN: Oh, well a lot of times it's, it's still current, you know what happens? [laughs] But uh, working with this city of Chicago, you know building, expanding, all of these things. It was a lot of headache because, you know I, I try to be honest in the business, and then I find out that in order to expand in business in Chicago, you have to get to know what the word mean--word of "payola 00:56:00'' means. I don't know if you understand payola. And everything was under the table, and that's how we were able to expand. Otherwise you know, it took years and years for different departments to approve, and you needed somebody to push this through the building department. So, well we weren't able to, to wait years you know, you have the fire department, the water--water department. City, city bidding--buil--building codes and all that the red tape that you have to go through. Well one of the secrets, I guess I could tell this, is knowing your alderman. He has the power, he is a power in your ward. And, he has so much influence in City Hall. But, I, I hate to break this but I have to take another 00:57:00break. So can you--

EL: Go right ahead, I'll pause the recording.

--

EL: Okay, so we'll pick up where we left off. You were talking about expanding the business, and a little bit about what it takes to grease the wheels a little bit in Chicago. And, just for clarification, would you be able to define for me the time period when all of that growth and expansion was happening?

TN: Okay, well the, the growth period, it started from uh, well we--I started in May of 1949, and this was in the 50s and 60s and 70s when the growth started. So by the time I retired, I retired in 1989, we had, I was checking the payroll, and we had over 750 people employed. Well what we did was, I think in the 70s 00:58:00or--yes I think it was in the 70s, late 70s when we, when we started acquiring retail store, retail store outlets. You know, in the 40s, in the early 40s and 50s I think there was a law saying that manufacturers cannot have their own retail outlet. And Eastman Kodak Company had to close all of their retail outlet stores. So, what we did was not against that law because we were not a manufacturer, we were a service company. And we started buying out some of these camera stores, that were on the verge of bankruptcy or whatever, and then we started building our own camera stores. This is long past, I could, I think I 00:59:00could reveal this, that we had 22 retail outlet stores, and the majority of them were called "Lion Photo Service". And we had, we had stores in Chicago, and a lot of them in the suburbs. Our biggest store was in Schaumburg, and our next biggest Lion Store was in Fox Valley, near Aurora. And we had a lot of other stores, we had one big store on Wabash Avenue, in the Loop. And of course we had others, small stores throughout like Skokie Camera became one of our stores. And we had accounts from--furthest north was Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we used to have 01:00:00drivers drive up there every day. And as far west as Aurora, and Fox Valley, Elgin, we had the Elgin, several store outlets in Elgin. And Algonquin, and far south is in Gary, Indiana. And of course some of our biggest commercial accounts was the Florsheim Shoe Company and they're outside of the Loop there. And there was a big, big account in Racine, Wisconsin. The name of the company slips my mind, but they're a big tool manufacturing company. Oh Snap-on Tools! Yeah they were, they were one of our big accounts. And what we do is we photograph, make 01:01:00big photographs of these, and send it out all over the country. Of course but Marshall Field they had their own delivery system, so we would deliver it to their warehouse and they would send it out to all of their stores. And they would display it in their window displays. And uh--

CL: Grandpa, so I was wondering since we are almost at the end of the interview, if you could also talk a little bit about some of the social groups? Um, any Japanese social groups that either you or like grandma, or mom were a part of?

TN: Okay, good, oh yes, I could do that in a nutshell. Not actually, it has to be a big nutshell. [laughs] Well I was, I was a bachelor for about seven years in Chicago, and there are a lot of, when we, when we first, when I first came here they had a lot of wome--girls, girls group. You know, when they came out of 01:02:00camp, all of the different girls from different camps they form groups. They were known as Titles, the Debonnaires, the Silhouettes. And each one of those groups had maybe 'bout 10, 15 girls. And lot of them are still going to school, and lot of them graduated. So there was kind of a mixture between 18 to 21 I guess. And what they would do is they would, sponsor dances. And of course, when all of the groups, there were about, I can't remember the exact amount, but there were maybe about six or seven different girls' groups. And they would have a dance at the YMCA on Chicago Avenue, or was that a YWCA? I can't remember. But 01:03:00then all of the people from the south side, north side, all the young guys they would go, go to the dance. And that's how we met all the different girls around the Chicago area. And of course the other event was, there's a lot of th-the boys, they was form sports teams. You know basketball teams, baseball teams, and they would gather together and have team parties. And the year that I went, they had, I think it might have been the first or second all camp picnic. It was on the west side, near, close to Cicero, Illinois. And I think they, they had about I can't remember the figure. The figure 20,000 comes but I think that's the, the, all of the evacuees. But there are-there were a big, big, crowd at the 01:04:00picnic. And we would just go around, and looking to see what, what people you knew from camp. And also you met lot of other people that were in other camps that you knew before the war. So, so it was a, a good time. I think, majority of the people that lived in the Chicago area went to that picnic. So it was a great picnic. I don't know if Resettlers sponsored it, I don't know who sponsored it but, but it grew a, it drew a big, nisei crowd. And--

EL: In the--oh, go ahead.

TN: In the 1950s, late 1950s, I met this one girl, she was from Hawaii. And I--and she stayed at the boarding house with another girl from Hawaii. And 01:05:00during that summer time, she had a sister that was going to Indiana State Teachers College. And she came to visit her sisters, and she had a brother here too. She came to visit, and then we started going out on a picnic together. You know, it was not only her but her girl friends that went to Indiana State. So we used to go out to Lincoln Park, bring out the goza, and have a picnic out there. And later on one, one August, it was August 18th, 1956 I think, 55. Her girlfriend says "Oh Tom," her name was Stella, said "Tom you know, Patsy, we're giving her a surprise birthday party, you think you could ask her for a date?" 01:06:00so I says, "Oh yeah sure, okay." All this time we just met as a group, so I went to her room and I says "What are you doing this--" I forgot what day of the week it was. She says "Oh nothing." So I says, "Well you wanna go out for dinner?" She says "Okay," so I said "Oh, I'll pick you up at 7," I think it was 7 or 7:30. Because the dinner was going to be at this restaurant in Chinatown. So I, I took her out--I picked her up, and we drove towards Chinatown. I says "How do you feel like Chinese food?" She says, "Oh, I like Chinese food" so I said "Good! So we'll go to this one Chinese restaurant." And here, well, this was her f--our first date together, you know we always dated as a group. So I parked the car and bring her into this Chinese restaurant, and soon as we walk in, you know 01:07:00she's expecting just the two of us. And then all of a sudden, I walked to the table and hear all of her friends, her sisters, her brothers, and all her girl friends from Indiana State, says "Surprise! Happy birthday!" [Laughs] And that's how we first got together on our first date, and rest of 'em was history. Seven great--seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild, oh, God has really blessed me. And I could tell you about my spiritual life too but that's gonna take another hour.

CL: Grandpa, that would take 10 hours!

EL: And we could always schedule another follow-up interview if you're up for it, and Cori if that's something that you're interested in, I feel like you have so many stories to tell, and I have so many more questions to ask you. But, 01:08:00building on what you were just telling us, when you proposed to your wife, did you do that somewhere in Chicago?

TN: Yes, I--I remember the exact space, the exact place. It was on the porch, at 1330 N LaSalle St. [laughs]

EL: And was that where you were living or where she was living?

TN: We were both, both staying there. I was on the 1330 side and she was on the 1328 side, because her and her girlfriend Stella, was living in an apartment, and her sister was living on 1328 side. Her, her name was Charlotte. And her other sister later moved to 1328, and her name was Gladys. So when they first found an apartment on north Kenmore, they found out the apartment was full of 01:09:00bed bugs, so they moved out of there and moved to, to 1328, North LaSalle Street. 

CL: And you all stayed in those two flats for awhile, or where, where did you raise mom? 

TN: You mean Reta Street? Oh, well that's after we, we got married and we had to my, my oldest daughter Kelly. And in the meantime, my sister-in-law and her husband, and my other sister-in-law, they bought a apartment building, three-flat apartment building, on north Reta Street near Wrigley Field. So uh, they both, they both moved in. On the third floor was a, a tenant, a Jewish tenant and they eventually moved out. So after, we w--we were living on Lakeside 01:10:00Place, near the Aragon Ballroom there. And we moved to the third floor, and that's where, my three daughters and their, their cousins grew up together. We were like one big family. And there was, three, three floors of us, so from the time they were small, they, they were like, fighting like brothers and sisters actually. And they're still close today. And, all of their children they're all, they're all close too. They're all, nice close cousins, right Cori? And you fight like cats and dogs sometimes too. [Laughs]

CL: Yes. [laughs]

TN: But we all love each other, and I'm so proud of them! All of them are so successful in life, they're so talented, I'm so proud of them. And I'm just waiting for this pandemic to be over so I could give all of them a big hug! [Laughs]

EL: I think a lot of people are looking forward to that time. On a related note, I'm curious, during the time that you were--especially the early days in Chicago, and your own family was quite far away geographically, how did you maintain a connection with them during that time?

TN: Well my, my parents lived in California. My sister, my brothers, they all lived in California. So, after I bought a car, almost every year I would, on my vacation time I would drive to California and visit them for two weeks. Well actually it was 'bout ten days the other time was left in driving. But, I don't know how many times I drove cross country, but from Route 66, to Route 40, to 01:12:00Route 30 I knew all the routes to California! [laughs] But sometimes, I would go with some of my friends because we would share a ride, and few of them lived in San Francisco and some of them lived in Los Angeles. So we'd just share a ride, and that's how I would keep in contact with my parents. But, other than that, I don't know if there's enough time to share about my religion, but I don't, I don't know if--

EL: If you're feeling energetic enough to keep talking, my schedule is clear and I can stay on the call, but it's up to you. 

TN: Okay well, I'll just try to be a few minutes because when, when I came to 01:13:00Chicago, I was a Buddhist. You know my mother and father were strictly Buddhist, and Yuba City was mostly people that believed in Buddhism. You know when I was at the-the boarding house, these people from Moody Bible Institute, which is located right on Chicago Avenue and, and LaSalle Street there. LaSalle and Clark. They would come by and they would pass out brochures, and all of us GIs we would just sit out in the front porch and we would make catcalls and whistles to all the, the girls that would go to this Moody Bible Church on North Avenue. So whenever Sunday came all the, all the girls would walk on the other side of LaSalle Street, because they, because they knew that we would make whistles and catcalls to them. But one day one of the guys from Moody Bible stopped and gave 01:14:00all of us little brochures. And we looked at it, and we just threw it away in the g--waste basket. But every day he would come and, and he targeted my friend Danny Takeguchi and myself, and he would just, I don't know why he targeted the two of us because we were both raised up Buddhist. But then, one Sunday Danny and I says, "Hey this, this guy's goin' stop and talk to us so let's go inside." So we went inside our room, and we were sitting, laying down in our beds reading a book, pretty soon there's a knock on the door. And then there's this guy! I says, I'm looking at Danny I said, "Boy, is this guy persistent!" So, so we didn't wanna be rude, so we invited him in and he started talking to us about Jesus Christ. So, so he gave me, he gave us a little booklet on the book of 01:15:00Saint Johns. And he, he told us about creation, and of course this is the first time I heard about creation. And it says, uh, in this book, are you a Christian, are you, are you familiar with the Bible, Emma? 

EL: I attended a Catholic school for a few years, I wasn't raised Christian but I have some familiarity.

TN: Oh okay, okay. But, but in this book it says, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God." So, he asked us "You know when the beginning was?" I says "Yeah, because you know, we came from the ocean and we, we're a fish, we develop legs, and then eventually we grew up to be an ape." So that's when he started explain to me about how God has created the heavens and the 01:16:00earth. So, so this is how I became a Christian. It took a few months of his persistency, but he kept coming and he started sharing little bit here and there. And then eventually, he took us to this one Japane--well, he, he took us to this Moody Bible Church. And Danny and I sat up on the second balcony, and we're looking down and then I'm telling Danny I said "Hey Danny I didn't know there were so many Christians in this place," because there were over 2000 people at the Moody church, and that's how I became involved in Christianity. And another comment I wanted to make, this is on a spiritual basis, was that when I had my three daughters you know when they were teenagers, getting ready to be a marriageable age after college, I was praying to God I says, "Oh God, 01:17:00pray that they will meet a nice, Christian, nis--nisei or sansei man" you know? And then all of a sudden God played a big trick on me. First one that got married was my daughter, and she got married to this Caucasian guy. And the second one, I says "Well maybe, maybe my second daughter will marry a nice sansei person." and she says "Oh Dad I'm gettin--I'm getting married to this person." I says "What is he?" She says "Oh, he goes to our church." I said "Oh good, good!" Because this, participants at our church was mostly nisei and sansei people. And she says "Oh his name is Charlie Lin." I says, "Charlie Lin." 01:18:00[laughs] And then, after I met him I said, says, "At least the Christian part was correct, he was a good Christian" and he turned out to be the nicest son-in-law I ever had. He was, he was takin' after me because he said "Dad, I'm taking after you because I have three daughters" and then, and he says, says, "And they're all going to be a Christians" so I says, "Charlie, you are the best!" and I still miss him today. He was such a good son-in-law. He was a good dad right? Kristi--Cori. I still miss him. But I think that's, that's about it, I'm getting out of breath. So thank you--

EL: And we're comi--

TN: Thank you so much Emma for the time, to reveal--share part of my life you know, 93, 92 years of life, and, and they seem to just go by so quickly, and I'm glad that I was able to show my granddaughter Cori, leave some of the legacy on the book, on the books. Thank you so much.

EL: Well thank you for being so generous with your time, and your remarkable memory. I am just in awe of how clearly you remember things, and how, how detailed your descriptions are. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart. 

TN: You're welcome.

EL: And Cori, thank you for organizing this. And as I said if there's any interest in continuing the conversation and recording again, we can absolutely 01:20:00do that, it's quite easy to set up a time. One advantage of this pandemic is that geography is no longer a barrier for us. So, I'm going to stop the recording now, but you're welcome to stay on the line for a moment after that and we can say our goodbyes, but I'll end it here with a thank you.

TN: You're welcome.